Good idea. We are living on a tight budget, but we haven’t personally been that affected by the recession. The worst thing has been that my husband was furloughed for five days over six months–no big deal, when you consider people are losing their jobs. Even when the economy improves, our personal finances still need work. We’re paying for a homebirth out of pocket, so we’ve been saving for that, and to see if it’s possible for me to be a stay-at-home mom one day. We’d like to pay off our still rather large car loan a year or two early, so we are living frugally indefinitely. And once you get used to saving, it’s kind of painful to waste money even if you have it to waste!

I wholeheartedly agree! We want to continue on the path we are on regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world. There will always be ups and downs and war and peace- but my finances don’t have to be beholden to the current times generally speaking.

Really, it’s not that we need to have the mindset that we’re “living in a recession”- we just need to keep living responsibly like we were before the economy was labeled as “downturned” or “recession” or “depression” or whatever.

For those of us who choose to live debt-free and secure (with an emergency fund and other savings), the wider economy has less of an effect on our personal finances, because we’re not living paycheck-to-paycheck. Saying we’re “living like we’re broke” or “in a recession” implies we’re living this way out of fear, when we’re actually living responsibly to be FREE from fear and worry.